The two-month-old 99% or “occupy” movement has been described many ways in the national media – as a leaderless movement, as a social-networking movement, or as a loosely assembled protest lacking common goals.
Panelist at a recent forum sponsored by the Madison College Student Senate sought to clarify such perceptions.
“This is not a random protest,” said Sarah Blaskey of the International Socialist Organization on campus. “This protest comes after decades of neo-liberalism, followed by a financial crash in 2008, and its resulting crisis.”
Blaskey, also a member of the International Socialist Organization on campus, joined four other speakers at the forum in which they asserted the importance, facts and history of the 99% movement.
The 99% movement started on Wall Street and has since gone international, spanning all continents and more than 17,000 cities. Blaskey said the roots of the movement did not start in New York, but can be seen in disenfranchisement felt by those who protested of the anti-Union bill passed by Gov. Scott Walker in February.
“America is suffering under a system that exploits them for the profit of a tiny minority, and we the people are tired of it,” Blaskey said.
The movement is not a protest against 1% of the population. Actually, it is against the upper 0.1 percent, according to Blaskey.
This 0.1 percent makes three to five million dollars annually at the expense of the 99 percent. This marks a distinct class battle that is “no longer one-sided,” Blaskey said.
The relevance of the 99% movement to Madison College can be seen in recent budget cuts. State technical colleges serve a vital role in educating the work force, serving the general population. Yet their budgets have been cut, while state government has offered increasing tax breaks to corporations.
Madison College has the highest number of students to successfully transfer into the UW System and “ninety percent of our students are employed after six months,” said Ousmane Kabre, a Student Senator at Madison College.
The fact is that Madison College “students create more than 12,000 jobs,” Kabre said, expressing that the importance of the technical college on the national economy is one not to be overlooked.
The struggle of the 99%, called “unprecedented” by Eric Cobb, former executive director of building trades council at Madison College and Presidential Candidate of the South Central Federation Labor Council (SCFL), requires more than the contribution of students and others existing within the younger demographic.
“Young people started this movement but they can’t finish it,” Cobb said.
“Mass globalization is a (key) to accomplishing goals,” Cobb said, giving examples of the older people within the working class, who are more experienced with class struggles, as the people that are needed to contribute in order for the movement to make critical progress.